First Person: 'War is Only Glorious to Those Who Have Never Experienced It'

As we near the 10-year anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, Yahoo News asked U.S. servicemen and women who served to share their perspectives and discuss how it changed them. Here's one story.

FIRST PERSON | On Feb. 14, 2003, the phone call came from my supervisor: We were deploying.

As I walked through the mall that day with my wife, whom I married on Jan. 2, just a little more than a month early, and my 7-month-old daughter, I could not help but feel anxious about what lay ahead for my young family. As an M1 Abrams tank crew member, in the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment, I knew in the back of my mind that we would surely see the violent side of war.

In typical Army fashion, our platoon had a big party to bask in the perceived glory that we thought war would bring us. It wasn't until after I returned home that I truly understood the phrase: "War is only glorious to those who have never experienced it."

Upon arriving in Kuwait, our mission was handed down to our unit, Apache Troop, and we were told that we were going to the "wild wild west." In other words: Syrian border, here we come. After driving our tanks to the Syrian border, we rolled into Al Qa'im in a huge show of force, thinking our sheer fire power would make any insurgents tuck tail and run for Syria. We ran 24-hour operations on the main supply route between Iraq and Syria, conducting vehicle and personnel searches of every living soul who traveled between the two countries, trying to ensure no weapons were being smuggled. We also conducted raids of suspected insurgent homes, storming into homes in the middle of the night and detaining any male who was considered old enough to carry out attacks against us. So many times I found myself trying to calm children and wives down. But how could anything I was saying at the time have mattered to them, when I just took their loved ones from them? Seeing the absolute terror in those children's eyes is something that sticks with me to this day.

After nearly two months of not having a single attack against us, all of the sudden the tables were turned, and we were now seeing multiple attacks every single day. We soon became numb to the attacks, and we all knew that as soon as we left our Forward Operating Base (FOB) Tiger we could expect to have attacks carried out against us.

As I was sitting on the .50 cal on my tank, pulling security for the border checkpoint, I noticed several young children, maybe ages 2 to 6, pushing tires around an empty field that lie between the checkpoint and the city. As if from a movie, all of the sudden I heard the all-too-familiar sound of an RPG, and before I could turn around to see it coming, the blast hit me. The blast knocked me down into the tank, and I knew my ear drums had taken the brunt of the damage. As I stood back up, I saw two more RPGs sail over the tank, and I could see the children abandoning their game and running for the city.

My gunner soon made it to the tank, and he asked me where the RPGs had come from. I pointed to where the children had been playing, and told him that the "SOB" had used the kids as cover, and I had not shot back yet because the children were still in the way. In that moment, I learned how violent war was. My gunner said to me, "It's either us or them, " and with that we both began to shoot our machine guns at the insurgents that were popping in and out from behind buildings. That moment in time is something that I will live with for the rest of my life, and is something that helps me to try and never take my three children for granted.

Then, on Dec. 3, 2003, came the wreck. I had just returned back to Iraq after being given two weeks off to fly back to Montana to see my wife and daughter. Little did I know that those two weeks were nearly the last time I saw them. It was the last stretch of the trip back to the Syrian border, and I was riding in the back of an LMTV, along with several other soldiers. It was early in the morning, and the cool dew from the night before had settled on the roads. As we rounded a corner, the rear end of the vehicle fishtailed and before I knew it we were rolling. The next thing I recall, I woke up and found myself trapped under the cab of the vehicle, with a large pipe under my throat. I forcefully tried to breathe, but was unable to gain even the slightest breath. As a soldier ran up to me and asked if I was OK, I could feel my face going numb and knew unconsciousness, and death, was approaching fast. I told the soldier that, "I can't F@$#^&G breathe!" and with that the lights went out.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying on the desert floor with a medic hovering over me. All while my taste buds were being overwhelmed with the taste of iron, as warm blood ran into my mouth. All of my clothes had been cut off, and I couldn't move my legs. I overheard the medic tell someone that he thought my back was broken, and that we needed a life flight ASAP.

I eventually was medevac'd to Landstuhl, Germany, where I spent two weeks going through tests and seeing different specialists. Luckily, my back had not been broken, and I was now walking with a cane everywhere I went. They told me that I was going back to Colorado, where I could get the rest and recovery that I needed.

Now 10 years later, and 30 years old, I am still happily married to my wife, with whom I three children. I have transitioned into a law enforcement job in a quiet little town in the middle of Montana, where I am able to continue to serve my community. Not a day goes by that I don't think about my experiences in Iraq, and how so many of those experiences have shaped me into the person I am today, some for the better and some not so much. It is one of those things that not many will understand, but for those of us who have been there, we understand that, "War is truly only glorious to those who have never experienced it."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/first-person-war-only-glorious-those-never-experienced-162500110.html

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